Pages

Kill la Kill Volume Five is the final volume of this action packed, over-the-top, dramatic anime about the high school from hell, an alien invasion, and a spunky young woman named Ryuko. This volume opens up with Ryuko rejecting and leaving her Kamui, Senketsu, due to all of the crazy stuff that I dare not spoil as it is way too huge to spoil. The final battle is also at hand as Ragyo Kiryuin (Satsuki's mother) is getting close to fulfilling her evil plan for world domination. Satsuki (Ryoko's dear rival) also happens to escape her imprisonment and is off to get her revenge on her dear old mother... Heck, The Elite Four, The Naked Nudist, and Ryuoko are all after Ragyo as well. Sadly, Ragyo has a lot of cards up her sleeve and one of them is to capture Ryoku and brainwash her into doing her bidding. How will our heroes and antiheroes put a stop to Ragyo and save the world from the evil aliens? (Click on "Read More" to read the full review).

We've approached the final episodes and all I have to say is that the storytelling is very fast paced and insane with a lot of over the top comedy and action. By this point of the series you are desensitised to the craziness (cray cray for the younger readers) and won't find it to be surprising, however you will still find it to be very entertaining and also very nostalgic as it'll remind you of all that crazy anime you grew up on during the 1990's up to 2004 (ahh, 2004, the last year before TV went though its dark and depressing phase where every thing was golden brown). The plot is also really interesting and has been since the start and it'll leave you in your seat as you'll care what'll happen in this show.

You know how much that I've been loving and praising the series for it breaking the cliche of having a run of nothing but good episodes, sadly, we've come to the point where we finally get a dud episode. To explain why it was a dud, I'm going to have to spoil some of what happens in this volume and I strongly recommend skipping the next two paragraphs, if you don't want to be spoiled. The dud episode involved Ryuko turning to the dark side and Satsuki has to battle her to try to get her to come back to the good side.

The reason why I didn't like this episode was due to Ryuko not working as a baddie at all, she came off as being so out of character that it was off putting. The battle between Evil Ryuko and Satsuki was also very, very, very average to the point of disappointment as there wasn't much going on, a lot of dull and predictable dialogue, and the mood was just darn dreadful due to Ryuko going heel and made the fight feel very off. This was an incredible shame as we deserved much better than what we got as we know that the Kill la Kill crew can come up with some really good fights and good character development. Sadly, we got none of that from that episode and it ended up being one of the most disappointing anime fights of all time, right next to Kenshin Vs. Shishio (from Rurouni Kenshin/ Samurai X (1996 - 1998) and John Cena Vs. Brock Lesnar at Summerslam 2014 (yeah, I went there, it was a s**t match, get over it).

Thank goodness the story picks up greatly afterwards and we get a really decent closing battle and story that will leave you feeling so good, you'll be begging to see more. It is also very nice to see an anime get a decent ending and it is also nice to see an anime get a legendary run of good episodes with little to no bad ones, like CowboyBebop (1998 - 1999). Going back to the whole "wanting more" comment, you do get a bonus OVA episode included for the last episode of the disc. The bonus episode was decent and did patch up some questions that the final episode didn't answer. I wouldn't say that it was all good as it did have some moments that were fillerish and just dragged the episode out for too long but it was very good for the most part.

Most of the action in this show is very top notch as it is very entertaining and has a lot of thought put into it. The action is also very imaginative and well paced, so you won't find any fights (excluding Evil Ryuko Vs. Satsuki) to drag on forever. This is a show that has a lot of wacky comedy that will be hit or miss to some viewers, however this show is also well balanced to where it is also a show you'll take seriously. I know what I said before is hard to believe due to this show having a lot of nudity in it, repeat, a lot of nudity, in fact most of the cast are naked in this volume and that'll turn off a lot of people.

The artwork and designs in this show are very good and have a nice Saturday morning cartoon look to them that reminds me a little bit of old Disney cartoons but not as perverted (HA!). The detailing on the characters are alright in some scenes but it gets to the point in this show where they are all have blank parts like Barbie dolls. I can see why as they did a move like this as they don't want to get in trouble for putting too much details in the characters during those certain scenes (you know type of the scenes I'm on about). The backgrounds in this show are very nicely detailed and help give a sense of the craziness that goes on in this show and also helps set the mood.

Animation in these episodes are nice, fluid, and consistent to where you will not see the quality drop at any given time. The Japanese dub is the way to go for this show as the voices matched up with all of the characters and the acting was very good to the point where it is a very memorable dub. The English dub isn't that good, in fact, it is very painful and had me switching to the Japanese dub as soon as I could. If you were ever turned off by this show because you saw the English dubbed version, I recommend re-watching it with the Japanese dub and English subtitles on as it helps enhances the good in this show. Music in this show is very good as it worked well with all of the scenes and helped build up an atmosphere.

This disc does also come with a small set of special features that includes: Text-less versions of the opening and closing credits. Text-less version of the ending scene to episode 24. The web versions of the episode previews. Lastly, a feature called Kill la Kill Digest: Naked Memories by Aikuro Mikisugi.

The text-less credits both had some very nice songs and fun visuals. The text-less opening isn't much though as all it is is just all of the characters going through multiple costumes, not bad though as it was fun seeing all of the costumes. The closing has a much more cartoony style and looks like something you'd find on a key chain or a My Little Kitty backpack. All that happens in the text-less closing is that we see is Mako doing some very adorable stuff and it adds a sense of innocence to the show. While these text-less credits are nice, they are the exact same ones found on the volume prior to this one, so you are getting nothing new here.

The text-less version of the episode 24 closing was very nice to see as you get to watch it uninterrupted, so you will have a clear view to what is going on. The Kill la Kill: Naked Memories feature was a ten minute recap of the entire series. This feature was okay and it does the job at going over the series in a nutshell but it is also a very redundant feature that isn't needed, not for this volume at least, maybe for the first volume of the next season if this show gets one.

Overall, despite there being one bleh episode, this was a very decent closing to a series and a real golden show as a whole. I defiantly recommend picking this up if you've got the other volumes but for those who are wanting to get into the show this late, I recommend waiting for the complete collection at this stage... Unless you can afford to get all five volumes right away. In the end this is a show that is worth watching and ended up being one of the best shows I've seen this decade. Worth it.